Cut Down on Paperwork and Emails With These Streamlined Apps and Tools

If you've ever had to download a PDF from an email attachment, convert it to an MS Word doc, export half of the information to Excel and then send three different forms of the same information to six different team members (in slightly different variations, of course), you know how exasperating a lack of workplace efficiency and agile technology can be.

Trimming the fat when it comes to email, HR policies, paperwork, meetings, brainstorms and a plethora of other bureaucratic processes is a key part of reducing employees' stress levels — not to mention that unorganized or inefficient company practices are major time-sucks (and savvy business owners know the adage "time is money" rings true).

From small companies to mid-sized businesses to large and established corporations, managing all the noise within an organization can be a bumpy and headache-inducing road. Thankfully, there are a variety of extremely helpful platforms, apps and online services available to streamline some of the messier aspects of running and managing a business. Below, we've outlined some of the most popular and most helpful resources on the market today, along with tips from the pros.

Platforms for maximizing workplace efficiency

The below platforms, apps, systems and practices can help cut down on inbox clutter, eliminate superfluous meetings and connect team members across states, time zones or oceans.

Employee satisfaction and workplace efficiency go hand in hand: The easier it is for employees to communicate, work together and access the information that they care about, despite their location, hardware or time-frame, the fewer frustrations arise and the more productive and satisfied they'll be. In addition, an efficient workplace can more effectively foster creativity, as well as a relaxed and collaborative environment.

Google Apps: Google offers an extensive, free suite of tools that businesses can take advantage of to maximize efficiency, improve communication and streamline meetings and presentations. Google Drive (as well as Google Forms, Sheets, Slides and Forms) easily enables document and spreadsheet creation, sharing and storing, while Google Calendar seamlessly syncs schedules among team members and across agencies. So, no more back-and-forth shuffling of attachments with file names like "monthly report v6.doc."

"Most of our internal business tools are highly-customized Google Sheets that enable real-time collaboration and updating," says Darren David, CEO and founder of Stimulant, a smart-space design firm. "We use them for everything from company-wide resourcing to estimating to tracking feature burn-downs."

Google Hangouts is another tool that can help connect team members who may work remotely or in different geographic locations. "Google Hangouts has helped our design team," says Matt Pollock, director of digital production at INNOCEAN, a full-service advertising agency. "When someone can't be in the room, the [meeting leader] will literally pin up multiple mobile devices to the wall of the 'war room' to give a multi-angle view."

Namely: For all things HR, Namely is a relatively new platform that can take a good deal of the headache out of managing a growing business. With a focus on companies in media, technology, professional services and commerce, Namely combines all HR-related tasks in one easy-to-access and modern system. Payroll, benefits and performance management no longer need to be a bureaucratic nightmare — and when information about the things that employees care about (benefits, PTO, etc.) is easy to access and ascertain, employee satisfaction and retention improves.

Atlassian/JIRA/Confluence: The Atlassian suite of products, including platforms such as JIRA, an issue- and project-tracking software, and Confluence, a tool for team collaboration, can be hugely helpful for companies that handle projects with a lot of moving parts.

"Confluence acts as the hub for much of our technical and product documentation for projects," says April Ayala, the executive director of technical production at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners, a New York-based marketing and advertising agency. "We also use it as a knowledge base, which is awesome because we can constantly update and share ideas and processes across teams. With JIRA, we operate under the mantra 'ticket or it didn't happen,' so everything gets tracked, and priorities are clear." Ayala also recommends HipChat, another Atlassian product, for teams to communicate in a more informal manner. "GIFs and emoticons are common — and encouraged — in these conversations," she says.

Asana: It's no secret that 100-thread email chains can make even the most even-tempered employee want to pull her hair out. With the tagline "Teamwork without email," Asana makes pairing tasks with conversations simple and removes the need for the dreaded status update. Though the platform can take a little getting used to, it's an efficient way to manage cross-team collaborations and create tangible accountability.

Dedicated company Intranet: Creating a "central nervous system" specifically for your company to more effectively communicate is a tactic that some companies use to maximize efficiency. ZocDoc, the popular online and mobile medical care scheduling service, recently implemented such a system, called Pulse. The organization populates its Pulse homepage with company press, updates, announcements, etc., and incorporates a unified search bar so that team members can easily locate specific documents and information. In addition, the platform houses general resources, such as a team directory, internal job boards, company policies and more. "It's helped cut back on company-wide emails, reduce clutter in everyone’s inboxes and give people one central location to find the information they need," says Jessica Aptman, the company's director of communications.

Trello: Think of Trello as the 21st-century version of the Post-It wall. The helpful platform is excellent for managing tasks within and among teams: Never again will you have to begin an email or send a Gchat saying, "Do you know if so-and-so has gotten to such-and-such yet?" The platform is user-friendly, visual — which is especially helpful for getting the full scope of a task from start to finish at a glance — and best of all, free.

Basecamp: Another hugely popular platform for collaboration, project management and efficient communication, Basecamp can be a useful tool for anyone from freelancers to large companies. "We use Basecamp as an internal and client-facing tool to communicate status, key milestones and have discussions around key deliverables," says Ayala. Organizations are clearly finding the platform useful: Last year alone, more than 285,000 companies utilized the service to complete more than 2 million projects.

Best practices for employee satisfaction

In addition to various softwares that businesses can use to improve efficiency, we've crowdsourced some tips below that offer valuable advice on general best practices for maximizing employee satisfaction in the workplace.

1. Collaboration is key

"At Kettle, we are always experimenting with new tools. Those adopted by the team stick around. Efficiency for us is all about communication and clarity; so, from weekly agency meetings every Monday morning, to daily project scrums, to a variety of digital tools, it’s all about alignment and collaboration."

"The integrations we have set up between JIRA, HipChat, GitHub and Jenkins help with transparency and communications, which has allowed us to cut down on unnecessary meetings and streamline live conversations. By being plugged into these tools, anyone on a team can understand in real-time when an issue was resolved. Using these tools together has reduced the need for constant follow-up or meetings, and has enabled us to maximize throughput."

— April Ayala, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners

3. Maintain and update

"Once you find the right tools, identify general rules for how your organization will use them, train your people and adjust as necessary. Stuff can start to get really noisy if not used in a way that everyone has agreed upon. Once that starts to happen, the benefits they bring can start to diminish. Maintaining and updating processes around how tools are utilized requires a little bit of housekeeping and some wrangling."

— April Ayala, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners

4. About those pesky brainstorms...

"We've always struggled with holding brainstorms across remote locations, as we like to bring the entire company together for what we call 'continuous collaboration.' To erase the boundaries, we share problems and creative briefs beforehand so that people can come to the meeting with context and ideas in-hand, and we designate a scribe so that every idea — no matter how outlandish — is preserved and shared back out to the group afterward. Some of the best ideas come from people in unlikely roles, often after the seeds have started to germinate."

— Darren David, Stimulant

5. Don't forget about old-fashioned, face-to-face interaction

"The most efficient tools are legs and mouths: We encourage people to walk over to their team members and have a conversation. Proximity is efficient, so co-locate your project team. Give them a 'war room,' make sure they clearly understand the goal, workflow and timeline. They will develop a project culture and a short-hand communication, which will cut down on email and cut out finger-pointing.”

— Matt Pollock, INNOCEAN

6. Utilize your own product

"Being a distributed company, a lot of our efficiency comes from using GitHub. It's the core of how we work together, and we pair it with chat rooms when we need real-time communication. We have a great customer support app, the secret being that everyone has access so we can unearth problems and bugs quickly. We built Hubot, a friendly robot who automates our chat rooms. We use him to deploy the site, automate tasks, notify us, warn us of danger and perform image searches for when we need to find a GIF to express the moment. We've found him so helpful that we've open-sourced him -– you can install your own robot and write customized scripts for what you need him to do."

"For distributed teams, every important discussion and decision should have a URL. Since about 60% of our company works remotely, it's important to us that we create ways to work together seamlessly, regardless of time zones. This means having a record of important conversations (be they text, code or video) for everyone to review and contribute to. We find this helps us cut down on unnecessary meetings while still keeping everyone involved."

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